


You are My Sunshine

by phoenixyfriend



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: F/M, Genderfluid Loki, Hot Chocolate, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Loki from JiM is only there as a hallucination/ghost, Leah is only there in a flashback, Maternal!Kate, Mentions of child abuse/neglect, PTSD, Panic Attacks, References to Child Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 16:24:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4107397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki has a nightmare. That's normal. What isn't normal is Kate's oddly maternal insistence on helping her feel better after she finds out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You are My Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains an in-depth description of a character having a panic attack as a result of PTSD and other possible mental illnesses, written from the POV of the character in question. This fic also contains mentions and allusions to past parental abuse and neglect, as well as references to the death of a child that happened in canon. If you feel that reading such may trigger you, I would suggest you close out of this fic now for your own safety.

Loki woke with a start, drenched with sweat and heart beating far too fast for comfort.

Nightmare. Just a nightmare. A ghostly memory that half-existed, but just a nightmare.

After the exhaustion of the day before, it wasn’t entirely unexpected, but that didn’t mean she liked it.

Loki flung the covers off and sat up, rubbing her hands against her eyes. Small hands, too small, just like everything else about the child’s body, but at least the dysphoria wasn’t as bad at this age. It actually helped chase off the guilt-laden nights about the time she spent in Sif’s body.

Unfortunately, it also meant that her mind, while supposedly adult and filled with a millennium of memories, was still frequently subject to the needs and wants of a child. Hormones and brain structure both impacted her thinking far too much for her liking, which was just another reason to try to get her body aged up as soon as possible.

Right now, though, since she couldn’t fix her body and was still reeling from the nightmare (thank Odin that Surtur was gone, whatever failings her adoptive father had; even if Mephisto and all her other monsters were still strutting around, at least one of the threats was no longer there), what she needed was hot chocolate.

Loki turned to get off the bed, but hissed and jumped back in as the cold registered on her bare feet. She eyed the floor, invisible in this darkness, and then carefully swung her feet inches over the ground until she hit her slippers, which she promptly put on.

She padded to the door and slowly opened it, thankful for the quiet of the Kree’s semi-liquid programmable metals. Quietly, she made her way down to the kitchen, and proceeded to try to make herself hot chocolate.

With the magic she’d used up in the Skrull fight earlier that day, she didn’t have enough to float the ingredients down, so… well, Loki had always been rather good at clambering all over things she shouldn’t have be on.

She took the milk out of the fridge and dragged the chair over to the cabinets, hopping on and reaching up to open it.

She wasn’t tall enough.

Okay, so she’d just climb onto the counter itself and reach up from there. Easy-peasy. No problem.

Loki climbed up onto the counter and reached up to the cabinets again, this time getting them open. The hot chocolate mix was near the top, but if she stood up on her tip toes and jumped just the tiniest bit, she could nudge it towards her just enough to—

CRASH

For a few seconds (okay, maybe a little longer), Loki’s brain was little more than a haze. There was adrenaline in her system, and she knew she was definitely somewhere other than where she was a few seconds ago, but she didn’t fully connect the dots until the pain filtered through.

 _Ow_.

The door slammed open, revealing Kate, who looked harried and ready for a fight (she _always_ did; it was a state that they all needed to be in constantly these days, after all, even if it did come more naturally to Kate). She seemed to relax, looking more exasperated than anything else now, and yelled something over her shoulder that Loki couldn’t be bothered to translate because the pain was getting stronger the more she lay there.

Getting hurt falling in the middle of the night was very different from getting hurt in a battle. In battle, it was expected and the adrenaline hid the pain. In the middle of the night, it was a surprise and there wasn’t enough adrenaline or distraction to hide the pain.

In battle, Loki didn’t cry.

She tried to lever herself up, but slipped and crashed back to the ground, her head smacking against the floor again. She whimpered involuntarily.

Dammit. If she had a proper adult body this wouldn’t be happening, and—

“Shh, stop trying to move.” Kate’s voice came from somewhere above her; Loki’s eyes were closed, so she couldn’t really tell where Kate was, but there were careful, calloused hands moving her head around and checking for something, including pulling back her eyelids. “Can you follow my finger with your eyes for a bit?”

 _No_ , Loki wanted to say, but she did as she was asked anyway, and Kate seemed satisfied, if still a bit worried.

“Well, you don’t seem to have a concussion.” She said, and carefully pulled Loki’s upper body towards her so that they younger head was resting in Kate’s lap. “How do you feel?”

“Shitty.” Loki muttered, and received a light tap to her nose in retaliation.

“No cursing,” Kate said, her fingers beginning to card through Loki’s hair, “Any scrapes? How many bruises?”

“No cuts or scrapes. And bruises… Lots.” Loki answered, enjoying the sensation of the fingers in her hair. “Mostly on my right. I don’t need any ice, though.”

“You should be okay in a few days. Sooner, since you’re Asgardian.” Kate’s hand left Loki’s head and slipped under her knees, easily picking her up and carrying her to the table. “Now stay there and I’ll make you the hot chocolate you were obviously going for, and you can tell me why you’re here at two in the morning.”

“I just wanted some hot chocolate and thought you’d all tell me that I’d already had too much sugar today, so I waited until you were all asleep so I could make myself some on my own.” Loki rattled off without too much thought.

“Bullshit.” Kate said immediately, and then softened at the offended look Loki shot her. She left the milk to heat and came over to the table, sitting herself down across from Loki. “Kid, your hair is drenched with sweat. I don’t think you worked that much up just pushing the chair over. What happened?”

Loki shrank into her seat, eyes darting down and away, staring at her hand on the chair’s side instead of at Kate. “It’s nothing.”

“Loki. Loki, look at me.” Kate’s hand came into view, and Loki froze for a second in anticipation for a hit that never came; Kate just put a single finger under Loki’s chin and gently pulled her face up. There was a look of pity in her eyes, a look that struck a match of small anger in Loki’s stomach.

 _I don’t need your pity, mortal_.

“Loki, everyone here’s been through a lot of shit, both in the past few months and before. I can’t imagine there’s a single person on the ship that would judge you for whatever drove you here. I definitely won’t.” Kate moved her hand up to cup Loki’s cheek, brushing a thumb over what Loki could tell was a developing bruise. “If it means that much, you don’t have to tell me, but I know that talking helps. A lot.”

Loki looked into Kate’s eyes and knew, without really wanting to, that she was telling the truth.

She could talk about some of it, truthfully even.

“I had a… nightmare.” She spoke slowly, carefully, gauging Kate’s expression with every word. “It was a memory that was mine, but also wasn’t.”

Kate nodded, not asking for an explanation, but clearly open to one.

“I… am not the Loki that was.” Loki’s gaze fell to her hands on the table. She was not the old Loki. Not the child, not the old man, not Ikol. “I am a new Loki. But I have some of his memories. They’re… broken, and muddy, and usually impersonal, but they… haunt me.”

“And one of the old Loki’s memories was your dream?” Kate asked quietly, not pressing so much as just trying to give a small nudge.

“Yes.” No. It wasn’t the old Loki’s, but the young one’s. The child’s. “After a fashion. They were mixed in with some of my own memories.” This was more accurate; the dream was a twisted perspective of both Loki and Ikol, a broken mirror of flaming visions and… “Leah.”

“Hm?” Kate leans closer, peering inquisitively at Loki. “What was that?”

“Nothing!” Loki said quickly, but she could feel her heart beating faster as the memory of Leah cursing her for leaving her to drift story-less for millennia and then the portal to the past… her breath quickened and she desperately tried to distract Kate. “Is the milk ready?”

Kate clearly didn’t believe her, but got up to check on the milk and finish making the hot chocolate anyway. Loki tried to get her breathing and heart under control, but only found it harder and harder as Leah’s furious face flashed before her eyes again and again and _again and again and_

“Loki?”

_For as long as my heart beats in my chest,_

“Loki, breath. _Breath._ ”

_I will **always** hate you._

“Loki, listen to me. Can you hear me?”

Loki could hear Kate saying something. She still couldn’t really tell what Kate was saying because something was _very very wrong_ and she was terrified. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was terrified of, but all she could see was Leah’s hateful face and all she could feel was a sense of dread so deep that she wasn’t sure where it had come from.

“Loki, if you can hear me, I’m going to talk you through some stuff that Billy’s mom told us about, okay? Breathe in for four seconds, hold for seven seconds, out for eight. Do you think you can do that for me?”

Kate’s words were making sense, sort of. They were probably a good anchor right? She wasn’t sure.

“—in for four, hold for seven, out for eight, okay?”

Controlling her breathing sounded like a good idea, probably. Except she was having trouble stopping herself from the jagged breathing she seemed to be stuck on. And Leah was still shouting.

“—distractions, right? That’s what I’m supposed to do? Um…”

Loki tried to focus on Kate’s voice a bit more, which got easier as she started singing. It was simple, and familiar, but it was easier to pay attention to than just her talking and pushed Leah and Surtur’s flames away.

“—take my sunshine away. The other night dear, as I lay—”

Oh. Loki knew this song. It was a sad one. Or a happy one. It could be both, really.

It was a very nice song.

Kate’s face was filled with worry when Loki finally managed to look up at her. They were both on the floor, and Loki was hugging her knees. Huh. She hadn’t realized she’d done that.

As Kate wound down on the song, she shifted where she was sitting and moved to a cross-legged position. "You wanna try those breathing exercises I talked about?”

Loki’s breath was still coming fast and shallow, but it was slowing down. She nodded anyway. Kate counted for her, and the cycle of four, seven, eight repeated itself several times before Loki finally felt calm enough to loosen a little. She tried to wipe away the half-dry tear tracks on her face by rubbing her face along her sleeve, but it did nothing to help.

“Want a hug?” Kate asked, but Loki shook her head furiously.

She wanted a hug, actually.

But that was the reaction of her childish body, not something she actually needed.

She was an adult. She did not need comfort of that sort from a mortal girl that was little more than a child herself.

“Okay,” Kate said, then left the underside of the table for a few seconds. Loki’s heart clenched for reasons she wasn’t entirely sure of, as though scared that Kate would leave her alone, but relaxed as Kate slipped back under the table again, two still-warm mugs of hot chocolate in her hands. She offered the larger one to Loki. “Here, if you’re still in the mood.”

“Thank you.” Loki whispered, and her voice was hoarse from… she wasn’t sure. Probably the hyperventilation. The hot chocolate soothed it, and she gulped it down eagerly.

“Slow down,” Kate instructed, but didn’t seem too concerned with enforcing the order.

They sat in silence for several minutes, just drinking the hot chocolate.

“I’m sorry for trying to make you talk about it.” Kate said at last. “It’s clearly not a good topic.”

Loki was silent for several seconds, and then slowly said, “That… has never happened before. I’m not entirely sure what it was.”

“A panic attack would be my guess.” Kate shrugged at Loki’s look. “Billy has them sometimes. I… I had some. For a while. Before I became a superhero, and in the early days of that, too. Had to do a lot of exposure therapy to tamp down most of the symptoms.”

“Oh.” Loki looked down at the granules of chocolate at the bottom of her mug. “Did talking help for you?”

“Yeah. But I talked it out with a therapist first and foremost. You don’t really have that option right now.” Kate smiled sadly at Loki.

“Yeah.” Loki kept staring down at her mug, and then looked hesitantly up at Kate. “About that hug…”

Kate put her mug to the side and held her arms open wide. “You don’t need to ask.”

Loki took a second, told the little voice that said she was too old for this to shut the hell up, and then crawled forward and turned sideways to seat herself in Kate’s lap.

Two warm arms were wrapped around her now, and her side was against something soft, and black hair that wasn’t hers hung about her like a curtain, and she felt _safe_. Safer than with Thor, because Kate wasn’t strong enough to accidentally hurt her, or say things about how Asgard was the best place to grow up, or any of the things Thor did that he meant well with, but that ultimately failed to provide any comfort. Her head was tucked up under Kate’s chin, and she could acutely feel how very small she was in this body, especially since Kate wasn’t very tall herself.

Thin, strong fingers carded through Loki’s hair, while Kate’s other hand rubbed calming circles into her back. Loki’s arms threaded their way around Kate’s midsection and clung tight.

“It’s okay to cry, Loki.” Kate muttered into her hair, and planted a small kiss on the top of her head. Loki realized with a start that there really were tears coursing down her face, dripping onto Kate’s mismatched nightclothes, and that meant that there was probably snot and all sorts of gross things there too.

“She’s dead.” Loki whispered. “Or she’s so far away that it hardly matters whether she survived.”

“Mm-hm.” Kate hums, just a small noise to acknowledge that she’s listening, but it’s enough.

“She said she hated me before she was sent away. Leah, she was…” the child’s best friend, _only_ real friend zir age, “very important to me.”

“I’m sure she’s forgiven you for whatever it is you did.” Kate said into Loki’s hair. “You’re not a bad kid. You’ve just been through a lot of bad stuff.”

_I don’t deserve this._

**You really don’t.** The child said, the ghost, or hallucination, or _whatever_ ze was poking zir head down from on top of the table. **Murderer. You steal my body, and somehow you get all this? People who care? And what did I get? A bunch of dead people, a traitorous hellhound, and Leah.**

_I’m sorry._

**No** , the hallucination sneered, **You’re not. Not _enough_.**

Loki squeezed her eyes shut and clung tighter to Kate, the tears flowing freely. Kate started singing again, a lullaby that Loki didn’t recognize, and kept rubbing circles into her back.

The tears stopped eventually. Loki wasn’t sure how long ago it was that she’d woken up, but she’d guess that it was far too long.

“I don’t want to go back to sleep,” she whispered into the fabric at Kate’s collarbone. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“We could stay out here until morning.” Kate suggested. “Or you could sleep on the couch and I could stick to one of the armchairs. Or…”

“Or?” Loki asked, not looking up.

“Well, you’re a bit old for this, but I don’t mind letting you sleep with me and Noh for the rest of the night.” Kate explained. “I used to go sleep in my parents' bed when I had nightmares, and I’d still be tempted to do it if my mom were still alive. I’m not either of your parents, obviously, but just being next to a warm body at all can help. Me and some of the old team used to do it for each other all the time.”

Loki contemplated the idea for a few seconds, part of her brain screaming at her that she was an adult and above such childlike actions. The rest… “Odin and Freya would have never let me sleep in their bed after a nightmare. Laufey and Farbauti even less so.”

“Look at this as a chance to try something new, then.” Kate said, a small smile on her face, trying to lighten the situation with a joke. “If you want to go with one of the other ideas, I’m perfectly fine with it.”

Loki didn’t want this. She was too old to—“I’d like to stay with you, please.”

(Lying to herself was usually easier.)

“Want me to carry you there? Or do you wanna wash up first?” Kate asked, finally dropping her arms from around Loki.

Loki shivered at the loss of warmth. “Wash up, yeah. That—that sounds like a good idea.”

“Alright, get up then. We can’t move ‘til you do.” Kate pushed lightly on Loki’s back. “We _are_ under a table, if you remember.”

“Yeah.” Loki crawled out from under the table, and Kate quickly followed.

“C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up.” Kate put a hand on Loki’s back and guided her out of the kitchen, leaving their dirty mugs on the table.

Loki saw herself and Kate in the mirror in the bathroom as she washed her face, but she also saw her younger self’s ghost, leaning up against the sink and staring at her with accusing eyes. While Kate busied herself with finding a towel, Loki quietly whispered. “Go away.”

 **You don’t deserve this. Her kindness. Her help.** Zir face twisted into a mocking smile. **She’s helping you because you broke down because you _killed_ someone. And you don’t even feel _guilty_ about it.**

“I do.” She whispered. She had, from that very first moment, no matter what other airs she put on. Not always much, but there’d been something from the first second and it _never left._

**Yeah? Prove it.**

Ze disappeared into wisps of green smoke as Kate came back with a towel and set about wiping away the water that was still on Loki’s face. “You feeling a bit better now that you’ve cleaned up a bit?”

 _No._ “A bit.” It wasn’t Kate’s fault Loki didn’t feel better.

“Well, hopefully by morning you’ll feel okay again.” Kate at least didn’t seem to expect Loki to be entirely fine so soon after a nightmare and… whatever the thing in the kitchen was. Odin would have already gotten angry about Loki being weak and… no. Best not to think about that.

(Panic attacks were things that happened to mortals, not Agardians.)

(…Right?)

Kate put an arm around Loki’s shoulders, a comforting presence rather than the heavy reminder such gestures usually were, and lead Loki over to her and Noh-Varr’s shared room. She knocked on the door and quietly asked. “Noh? Honey? Are you decent?”

Loki made a face. Noh-Varr was pretty, sure, but _ew._ Maybe if it were Teddy or Billy, but Noh and Kate were… no.

(Parental/older sibling figures to the whole team, her subconscious supplied. She’d already internalized their roles as the leaders and caretakers for the whole team, and that put them into one of those spots that was basically “not ever a sex thing EVER.”)

Noh-Varr opened the door, wearing boxers but nothing else. He looked tired, but not like he’d just been woken up. His gaze drifted down to Loki, who shrank a bit into Kate.

“Loki’s going to be staying with us for the night, so please put something more on.” Kate said, leading Loki forward. Noh-Varr stepped out of the way easily, seeming a little confused but not like he opposed the idea at all.

Well, he might oppose the idea of clothing. But that was because he just really seemed to hate shirts.

“I have a set of nightclothes somewhere.” Noh said, and Loki stopped paying attention as Kate brought her over to the bed and started arranging the pillows into something more suitable for three people.

“Do you want to be in the middle?” Kate asked. “Or would you rather be on the end?”

Loki looked up at her with wide eyes. That was… not the kind of question she had an answer to.

“Um… middle.”

“Hop in, then,” Kate lifted the covers and gestured for Loki to get in. With gulp, she did, wondering at herself, just how far she’s fallen to accept comfort from humans who thought of her as a child.

(Just how far she’d grown from what she was, to accept comfort from humans while feeling like little more than a child.)

“Kate?” She said quietly as Kate went to turn off the light. With everything else happening tonight, what was one more little secret? “I’m, um… I’m a girl.”

Kate paused in her little pre-bed duties for a second and then turned to Loki. “Is that why you’re sometimes uncomfortable when America calls you _chico_?”

Loki’s eyes widened. She hadn’t realized anyone had noticed that. “Um… yeah, actually. I mean, I’m not _always_ a girl, but I am sometimes, and I just…” _didn’t know how to bring it up._

“You’ve talked about shape-shifting, so just tell me if I need to start buying you hygiene products and we’re good.” Kate came over and smoothed Loki’s hair back with a smile. “Seriously, after everything else we’ve seen on this team, it takes a lot to shock me, and I’m sure the others are the same. If you want us to call you a girl on some days, just tell us those days and we’ll do our best to use whichever pronouns you want.”

“I…” Loki closed her mouth and gulped. “Thank you.”

“Just basic human decency.” Kate said. “Now budge over, I need some more space than you do.”

Kate climbed into the bed and settled in, fluffing pillows and maneuvering blankets. Noh-Varr came out of the bathroom in a set of black silk pajamas that Loki was _not going to ask about._

“You have like zero clothing, Noh,” Kate said, taking the question on instead, “where the hell did that come from?”

“Carol Danvers, actually. There was some winter holiday celebration for all the people who were Avengers at the time, and she said she’d noticed I needed more clothing since we worked together on missions, and decided pajamas were a good start.” Noh settled into the bed on Loki’s other side and, to Loki’s utter disgust, levered himself up to kiss Kate goodnight.

“Gross.” She muttered, and got an answering chuckle from both Kate and Noh.

“Go to sleep, Loki.” Kate kissed the top of Loki’s head and wrapped an arm around her midsection, pulling her snugly close. Hesitantly, Loki wrapped her own arms (too small) around Kate, and pressed her face into Kate’s shoulder. She felt Kate’s hand come up and start combing through her hair again, and Noh roll closer and lay an arm over both of them.

It was comfortable. It was comfortable and domestic and if she started crying because it was something she’d never truly had before, no one commented on it.

Kate started singing again, quieter than before, and not entirely on-key, but soothing all the same.

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,”

 **You don’t deserve this. Not after what you’ve done.** The voice came from the bottom of the bed.

 _I don’t care_ , she thought back. _I need it, whether I deserve it or not._

“Oh please don’t take my sunshine away.”

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank you to thegaywardens for brainstorming with me and reading the fic over to see if there were any mistakes in my portrayal of panic attacks and other symptoms of mental illnesses.


End file.
